


Welcome to Breaktown

by kbvibes



Category: CrissColfer - Fandom, Glee RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Complicated Relationships, Friends With Benefits, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 21:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7405696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kbvibes/pseuds/kbvibes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darren is the man on the moon. He's the man on the ledge. When he decides that it's time to save himself and turn his life around, he turns to the safest person he knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to Breaktown

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, guys. Blame this purely on my Hanson playlist and a half of a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. Inspiration, lyrics and title all from the song “[Breaktown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBnE3WvenAs)” by Hanson. Giving the song one listen is highly recommended. 
> 
> This one’s dedicated to all the beautiful boys who keep us coming back for more.

“Whatever you're selling, I don't want any.”

They're the first words Chris has said to him in person in months. 

Sure, he's heard his voice. There are sound bytes and videos that will haunt them both for the rest of their careers or lives. Whichever end first. In Darren's case, he sometimes wonders.

There have been a handful of texts and few short obligatory phone calls. After all, they're friends, right?

_“Just calling to say happy birthday! How is everything?”_

_“Hey, congratulations on the book deal, man…”_

_“You know how crazy the schedule is, but I'm going to try to make it to your show this time. You're going to kill it.”_

Darren knew Chris meant half of that. 

There were other calls. 

_“I got your text. What did the vet say? Do they know why he won't eat?...”_

And the worst.

_“I just heard. God, I'm… Are you okay? Of course not. Dumb question. Call me. Anytime. If you want. Just…”_

Darren hung up after that like a coward. 

And the drunken messages that Darren doesn't need or care to remember the wording of. Those are all him. Chris is smart enough to have this crazy app on his phone that makes him solve a complicated puzzle before he can place a call or send a text if he knows he's going to get trashed. 

Darren laughed at him about that once, but that was before he ended up singing most of “Hallelujah” into Chris' voicemail one night. Chris never brought it up, so neither did he. 

There's this stretched out moment where they just just stare at one another. Checking for changes, differences from the morning they said goodbye for the fourth of fifth time in Darren's New York apartment just after Christmas. One of their many “mistakes” that they've both lost count of. Chris looks good. Better than good. There isn't an appropriate adjective for how he looks with his three day scruff growing over his chin and slightly crooked glasses. But it's really something in his face. He looks impossibly younger than he had a year ago. He looks… _free._

Darren doubts the same could be said for him. 

But that's why he's here, isn't it?

He's a man on the ledge and he's come to the safest place he knows to fall.

In one blink that moment to just drink each other in is broken and Chris nods his head. “Okay.”

He starts to close the door in Darren's face, an action they both know serves their equal flare for the dramatic. If Chris really hadn't wanted to see him, Darren never would have made it past the gate. 

He wedges his foot between the doorjamb and heavy wooden door, thinking - well, hoping - that Chris wouldn't want to cause him bodily injury. 

Again. But that one time had been an accident. Darren had no idea the man was so heavy when he tried to pick him up, but his back hadn't let him forget it for a week. It had taken an entire bottle of Advil to get him through that one.

“Hey! Hey, wait!” Darren's words stop him so easily that he knows that some part of Chris is intrigued to find him here at his door tonight. 

He opens the door a little wider, not wide enough for a person to comfortably walk through, but then again, Darren's never been a very large person in general. Big mouth, certainly. Big head, occasionally. But physically? Not so much. 

He pushes past Chris, rubbing against the lean lines of muscle wrapped in cotton that he once knew better than his own body. That he probably still does, truth be told. 

Chris opens his mouth to bark some kind of outrage, but Darren's too quick. He's put a lot of thought into this, after all. 

“Is anyone else here?”

The question catches Chris off guard, making his mind change tactics. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

“Someone who doesn't need a flea dip every three months?”

He catches the small twitch of his lips Chris tries to hide. “I don't know. You're here now.”

It's all the confirmation Darren needs to start toeing off his shoes just inside the door and walking past Chris to the kitchen. He remembers where Chris keeps the good stuff. 

There's a hard set to Chris' jaw when he follows behind and watches the other man pour himself a generous glass of his tequila. At least Darren pours a second one for Chris while he's at it. His mama did raise a gentleman, after all. 

“I never said that was an invitation for you to stay.” Chris is reaching for his own glass even as he says the words. Darren's always been somewhat of an enigma to him. It's a fact that Darren knows and has used in his own favor many times. 

Along with the fact that…

Darren finishes his first drink in two shots and pours himself another. “Did you know I woke up in New York this morning?”

Chris arches a single eyebrow. “I didn't. But since you live there now…”

“I don't.” His head is already shaking. Darren knew he should have opened with a better line. It was just the first thought he had. “I don't know where I quote _live_ anymore. I'm there, I'm here. I'm with this person, these friends, this party, that show. On and on, over and over. But as far as where I actually am most of the time, man, I'm just looking around me for road signs.”

Chris' full glass is set down beside Darren's half empty on on the countertop. “You've done this whole…” He makes some complicated waving motion with his hands and, fuck, if it isn't the most endearing goddamn thing Darren's seen in months. “This losing your path thing before. Eyes on the prize, right? You'll find your way through it. You always do.”

And that's the thing about Chris. He can say all the right words, play the good friend (formerly with many, _many_ benefits) but when there isn't a camera turned on him, his eyes never pull off the words. He doesn't believe it's right. He never did.

For all Darren knows, Chris resents every choice Darren's made in the past several years, hates him for them. At least that's what the insecurity, Irish whiskey, and room with a highrise city view have convinced him of from time to time 

And this is the moment that Darren sat on a plane for six hours for, has cycled through and through in his thoughts endlessly for weeks. He has tried to imagine every possible way that this conversation could go. Incarnations ranged between everything from Chris chucking a dog toy at Darren's head and screaming at him to get the hell out of his house (still a possibility) to throwing Darren down on this very kitchen floor and tearing at each other's clothes until there's nothing but skin, sweat, and missed opportunity left between them (also possible, and preferable, though slightly less likely without a lot of conversation taking place.)

He decides to go for a more direct approach. Chris will appreciate that. He likes it when Darren's direct with him. “I think I have missed you more than I've ever missed any one person, place, or thing in my whole life. And that's coming from someone who has had no choice but to leave a lot of shit behind for one fucking reason or another.”

The words hang in the air between them, long enough for Chris' lightning fast, ever-ready mind find some way to refute them. Just like Darren knew he would. 

_You think I don't know you, Colfer? Oh, I know you. Better than you'd like me to. Mr. Keep It All To Yourself, no emotion and save it all for a book._

Chris schools his lips into a smirk. “You're dru-”

“Am I?” This too Darren was prepared for. He walks forward until they're close enough to touch, but he doesn't. And Chris doesn't move back. It's almost more than he could ask for under the circumstances. “Listen. Give me five minutes to say this, and then you can kick my drunk ass out if you want to.”

It's the kind of challenge that they both know is hard for Chris to refuse. He pulls out a chair from the small table in the kitchen and motions for Darren to take a seat. “You've got three.”

Three minutes to say the shit it's taken him almost four and a half years to get up the balls to say. Fine. Time to read the road signs. 

Darren doesn't sit down. There's way too much nervous energy coursing through his veins like battery acid to allow for that. He doesn't look directly at Chris either, at least not at his face. He steals a glimpse of a hairy shin, one long-toed bare foot, the fraying hem of his t-shirt. 

“You know how they say that everyone gets their own voice of conscience? Some little Jiminy Cricket bastard to live in their brain and tell them what to do in terms of right and wrong? I realized that for me instead there was always this distinct voice in my head yelling _‘Hey, shithead! That's a bad move, man. Don't.’_ But I never listened. You know I'm bad at listening. And it wasn't only a voice, either. It was like literally written inside the walls of my skull. Every time. I never read the words inside my own head. That voice? It was yours." He swallows the sudden rush of saliva that fills his mouth. God, he might actually make himself sick right here in front of Chris here and now. And wouldn't _that_ top off the evening just fucking grand. 

Darren finally risks a look up to find Chris staring at him with some undefinable expression that Darren wishes he knew how to read, but doesn't. Maybe the past year has changed them more than he thought. 

He has to consciously take in his next breath. “Don’t you think that means something?” More silence. More of that blank stare, like Darren might as well not be there at all. “Chris.”

Finally his lids close down, shuttering away those eyes that have haunted every sober night of sleep since that last morning in New York. (Even the ones when Darren wasn't alone. Especially those.) 

When Chris opens them again they're not empty anymore. They're hurt, wary. “So I'm your conscience. I tell you when you're fucking up. Which, for the record, Darren, is pretty often.” He sighs and finally gets up to retrieve his own drink. “What I don't know is what you want me to do with any of this shit you're telling me. It doesn't change anything.”

Darren counts to three in his head. _Say it, Asshole! Tell him._ This is why he's here. Why he booked a last minute flight and came to the only place, only person, he's felt himself with in a very long time. 

“What if it did?”

The words seem to make Chris' body jump like electrodes stuck to his skin. “What? What in the fuck are you-”

Now or never. Maybe literally. Darren knows his three minutes are long since used up.

He squats down in front of Chris' chair and risks enough contact to place his hand on one bony, white knee to help keep his balance when he looks up into the face that's always left him feeling dizzy and says that words that have been buzzing around inside his head for months. “I want to change things. No more games or lies or just… the shit I've been up to.” 

That part was true and it feels amazing to say the words aloud to another person. Darren's known for over a year that his life was going into a spiral and he would hit rock bottom eventually if something didn't change. He wants out. His career will have to find a way to survive it. Nothing's worth this.

“Darren.” There is a tiny frown line creasing Chris' face that shouldn't be there. That Darren put there. Either he doesn't believe him or he really doesn’t want any part of…

“And you and me. I want to stop this damn _thing_ we do. We circle each other for a while, fall into bed, fuck for two solid days, and then we just stop talking? For months. Months, Chris. Don't you think we're too old for this shit now? We could actually try to be-”

“Be what, Darren?” Chris launches himself out of the chair, knocking Darren on his ass in the process. He has reached his breaking point. This is all way too close to all the walls that close in, all the words they don't say.

Chris paces to the window to look out into his backyard, arms cross over his chest in his classic defensive pose. Darren scrambles to his feet to stand a few feet behind him. Close but never close enough. Not for Daren’s liking. 

Huh. Chris changed his patio. Darren didn't know that. Fuck, Cooper's getting huge. Guess these are things that happen in a year. 

Darren waits. It's all he can do after what he's asking for now. He's prepared to wait for a long time of the has to. It would only be right after all the years…

“You know that I'm seeing someone.” Chris doesn't turn around when he says it. In fact his voice is the flat monotone that he might use to recite back a familiar a phone number. Basic information. 

“I know you are.” It would have been hard for Darren to miss that fact. 

“I have been for a couple of months now. He’s good to me.” He finally turns and Chris' eyes are full of something like a confession. Like he's done something wrong. He hasn't. They've both been guilty of keeping their beds warm. Why shouldn't they? They are attractive, healthy adults who enjoy the... company of other people. Darren came here knowing all of this. 

“But that's it, isn't it? You _see_ him. You go out, you screw around, but that's all there is.” Darren might get kneed in the nuts for this one, but it's a risk he's willing to take. He lifts one hand to the side of Chris' face and the polarizing contradiction of the pink-white satin skin and rough stubble growth makes Darren smile. He doesn't even know why. Touching Chris has always made him happy in a way that things like music and a screaming crowd used to, but this is one addiction he hasn't grown immune to. 

“There's no spark. I know what it's like when you burn and this guy?” Darren tries to wipe the grin from his face even when Chris moves a step away, but he can't. He knows. He knows him. “He's like one of your damn sodas that you leave out on the counter. Room temperature. If you're thirsty enough it'll do the job, but that's not what you want.”

Chris keeps his eyes trained on the view out of the window for just long enough to make Darren begin to think this was all for nothing. The snake of doubt slithers up his around his mind, smothering out Chris' ever-present voice that has been telling him that it's time to quit. Time to learn and see, finally, what this thing between them is. 

God, just let it _breathe_ for once. 

“And you think you know what I really want?” 

The words take a moment to clear their way through his sudden doubt and register in Darren's mind, so does the way Chris is looking at him. Open. Unguarded. 

He swallows hard and shuffles a half step towards him. “I want really fucking want to find out. I want a lot of things. And, Chris, I'm scared.” It's the most honest thing he's said since he walked through the door. He doesn't realize his hands are shaking until one reaches for the tips of Chris' fingers. 

Chris closes his eyes and releases a heavy exhale, one that sounds like he has been holding it for years when he lets Darren tangle his fingers through his. 

“So can I… Can I stay? This is going to be hell and I don't even know what all is going to-”

“You can stay.” Chris’ voice is sure. As sure as it had been when Darren asked him out on the night they met. “I want you to stay.”

 

_You keep it all to yourself_  
_You're just like everyone else_  
_So take a good look around_  
_Now....”Welcome to Breaktown”_  
_For the first time_  
_It's a great town_  
_For your worst time_  
_When you freak out_  
_There's a road sign_  
_Welcome to Breaktown_


End file.
